


always your anchor

by ArgentLives



Series: live in gal pals [10]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Teen Wolf AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 02:39:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4122823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentLives/pseuds/ArgentLives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iris comes from a family of hunters, and Caitlin is her supernatural girlfriend. It's complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: "snowest teen wolf au" (this is super duper old but i'll post it here anyway!)

“Caitlin, please, just focus on my voice, okay? This isn’t you,” Iris pleaded, kneeling down so that she was at eye-level with her friend, dangerously close to claws and teeth that didn’t seem promising.

Caitlin had begged her not to stay, to chain her up and leave, but Iris had refused.

“You’re not going to hurt me, Caitlin. And I’m not leaving you,” she had been firm, so sure of herself. So stubborn.

Besides, she was a hunter’s daughter—she could take care of herself. She was nothing if not brave.

It was just…she hadn’t quite anticipated this. After Caitlin had been bitten, she and Barry had researched the effects that the full moon would have on her and gathered all the information they could to help her. She had known that this might happen, but seeing it in person was a whole different story than just reading about it in a book.

It was killing Iris to see her like this. To see Caitlin, who craved structure and control more than anything, without any authority over her own body. She couldn’t even imagine how it must have felt for her, slowly feeling herself slip away, slowly feeling herself lose control.

Caitlin struggled and pulled at the restraints, threatening to pull them from the walls with unnatural strength, wild and completely unlike herself. If this went on any longer, Iris observed, she was likely to succeed.

She couldn’t let that happen.

“Caitlin, hey, look at me,” Iris begged, scooting closer to her, lifting trembling hands to cup either side of Caitlin’s face, so close to those teeth, so sharp and…she realized with a sinking feeling that she was scared. 

Scared of  _Caitlin_ , of what she might do to her. And she hated herself for it—it felt like a betrayal, a breach in faith, that she would have any shred of doubt that Caitlin wouldn’t harm her.

Iris swallowed her fear and steeled herself, forcing herself to look into those glowing, unfamiliar eyes and struggling to hold Caitlin still as she thrashed against her chains.

“Cait, please,” Iris whispered, her voice breaking. She blinked away the tears from her eyes, blurring her vision. “I…I love you.”

It was the first time she’d said it, but she knew without a second thought that it was the truth. Saying it was as much for Caitlin’s benefit—to anchor her, to calm her down, to bring her back—as it was for Iris.

She watched as Caitlin’s eyes flickered, at the pain etched within every line on her face. Gold to brown, gold to brown, back and forth and back and forth. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, her struggling ceased and her body went slack in her restraints, and she collapsed into Iris’s waiting arms.

“You did it, you did it, you’re okay. I’m so proud of you,” Iris breathed, letting out a shaky sigh of relief. Caitlin was drenched in sweat from exertion, from the enormous effort it had taken to regain and maintain control, but Iris held her tight all the same, placing a kiss into the hair messily plastered against her forehead.

“Iris, I…” Caitlin trailed off, her voice wobbly, her body shaking all over.

Iris pulled away to get a better look at her face, her heart breaking at the wetness on Caitlin’s cheeks and the mascara smeared beneath her eyes, familiarly brown again. 

She seemed to be struggling to say something, which wasn’t exactly unusual. Since the day Iris had met her, Caitlin had always had trouble letting her walls down and expressing her feelings, and even now, after everything she’d been through, didn’t seem to be an exception. It didn’t matter, though, because everything that she couldn’t say, everything that she couldn’t seem to put into words, was written plainly in her eyes.

_I’m tired_ , they said.  _I don’t know if I can keep doing this_.  _I’m hurting._   _I’m scared. I’m sorry. I love you._

Iris swiped her thumb across Caitlin’s cheek, wiping away a tear, and gave her a watery smile to show that she understood.

“Shh, it’s okay,” she soothed, pressing her forehead against Caitlin’s and letting her eyes fall shut, “We’ll get through this. Together.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris gets hurt protecting Caitlin from hunters, and later Caitlin doesn't want to leave her side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: "snowest teen wolf au + "kiss me"

She peeks her head around the door frame nervously, and lets out a sigh of relief when she finds the room empty except for the girl in the hospital bed who she’s come here to see. The place is dimly lit, and as she slips into the room and closes the door behind her, guides it shut as quietly as possible, the sound of someone clearing their throat makes her jump. She just barely manages to bite back a scream. 

She squints at the figure in the bed, and sure enough, the girl’s eyes are open and they’re focused on her, and they’re just a bit hazy but they’ve got that mischievous light in them that she simultaneously can’t stand and loves more than anything. Iris is grinning at her, propped up a bit with the pillows behind her back and the hospital bed tilted upward, and the sight of it nearly makes Caitlin break down right there. It hasn’t even been a day since she’s been out and God, she’s missed that smile.

[[MORE]]

“Jesus, Iris, you scared me. Couldn’t you tell I was trying to be stealthy?”

Iris hums in amusement, her smile growing wider as Caitlin makes her way over to her and perches herself on her bedside. Her voice is tired and weak, and her eyes are a little bit clouded–from painkillers or from actual pain Caitlin can’t tell–but she’s alive.  _She’s alive_. “Yeah, I noticed. Why is that, again?”

“I…ah…well, I’m not really  _supposed_  to be here. I wantedto be here, of course, I wanted to be there when you woke up and I’ve been trying to get in to see you since the second they got you stabilized, but your family was making it a bit…difficult.”

“They’re not my family,” she spits, the bitterness in her tone taking Caitlin off guard. “They’re reinforcements. Even my dad, for all his over-protectiveness…I don’t think he ever approved of them being here. But anyway…how’d you get past them?”

“Barry and Cisco helped me sneak in. They’re too good at that kind of stuff, if you ask me. Oh, and they say hi, and they’re really glad you’re not dead, by the way.”

“Sweet of them,” she laughs, shaking her head fondly. “Barry was actually in here earlier, stopped by with his dad. You know, since we’ve been friends for ages, I guess they let him in. I don’t think they know about him yet. Being…you know. Like you and all.”

Caitlin heaves a sigh and picks at the hem of her skirt, staring down at her feet before meeting Iris’s eyes again. “Guess not. Wish I could say the same, but clearly…well.”

“Yeah,” Iris gives her a weak smile. “I know.”

There’s a brief silence between them, and it’s not exactly uncomfortable but it’s  _heavy_ , because there are so many unsaid things hanging in the air, so many things they both want to say, that they need to talk about, and a million different places to start. Finally, Caitlin grabs Iris’s hand and threads her fingers through hers, her voice shaky and quiet when she breaks through the tension.

“You shouldn’t have done it.” The ‘it’ in question being acting as a human shield, jumping in front of Caitlin and the wolfsbane bullet speeding toward her heart, defying the hunters hell-bent on ridding Central City of the supernatural, benign or not. The wolfsbane didn’t affect her the way it would have affected Caitlin, the way it was  _meant_  to affect people like her, of course, but the bullet she’d taken in the side as she’d pushed Caitlin out the way was still a bullet nonetheless, and it still had the capacity to do serious damage. Irreparable damage, even, something Caitlin had been terrified of as she’d held Iris in her arms, grateful that the hunters chose not to pursue her, too stunned that they’d ended up hurting one of their own, as she’d carried her to the hospital and begged her to stay with her, blood soaking through her shirt and her heartbeat growing fainter all the while. 

“You’re not invincible. You don’t heal like I do. You…you could have died, Iris.  _You could have died._ ”

“Hey, hey, shhh…” Iris soothes as Caitlin turns her face away, and she watches the tears roll down her cheeks as her breathing starts to speed up, wishing she had the strength to wrap her arms around her girlfriend, to hold her close against her and reassure her of the steady beating of her heart even though she knows Caitlin can no doubt hear it already. “I’m still here, aren’t I? Besides, I had to. And I would do it again, over and over and over if it came to it. They were going to hurt you, Cait. They were going to  _kill_ you.” 

Caitlin purses her lips, because there’s no point in arguing with her about this. Not when she’s finally got her back. Iris is the most stubborn person she knows, and there’s nothing she could say or could’ve said that would or would’ve stopped her. Besides, if their positions were reversed, she knows without a doubt she would do the same. “But what about your family’s code? Don’t all hunters have them? I distinctly remember something about not being friends with the enemy, and…are you…are they going to punish you for saving me?”

“Nah, I’m too important. Plus, they’d have to deal with the wrath of my father if they even thought about laying a finger on me. And you know what, screw the code, Cait.” Iris rolls her eyes, and Caitlin bites her lip to hide her smile. “You’re more important.”

Iris shifts and tries to lift an arm to stroke Caitlin’s cheek, but her limbs feel like lead and she can only groan at the pain that shoots up her side. She watches Caitlin’s eyebrows pull together in concern, but before she can open her mouth to inevitably tell Iris to get some rest, Iris gives her her best pleading look, her best puppy-dog eyes. Rest isn’t what she wants right now. 

“Kiss me? Please? I would come to you, but…well, it’s a little hard to move right now.”

Caitlin laughs and moves so that she’s hovering over her, careful not to jar her wounds, her hair hanging down and tickling Iris’s cheek as she leans in. She cups her face with a gentleness that she’s come to know through learning control, through taming the wild thing in her heart and keeping her claws at bay, and brushes their lips together, soft and warm and tender. Iris feels an instant relief in her side, a comfort and a safety like a blanket settling over her bruised and battered skin, and when she peeks her eyes open just a bit and sees the black lines running up the fingers Caitlin’s got cradling her face she knows that she isn’t just kissing her but taking her pain away. She sighs happily and feels herself melt into her touch, and the kiss becomes something a little less tender and a little more passionate as she gets some of her strength back.

After a while Caitlin pulls away, but only just, keeping her eyes closed and resting her forehead against Iris’s, her voice soft and serious. “Don’t ever scare me like that again, okay? I–I can’t lose you.”

Iris tilts her head up a bit to close the small distance between them  and breathes a word against Caitlin’s lips before kissing her again. 

“Promise.”

 


End file.
